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Key ally of Imran gunned down outside her home

A CLOSE political ally of Imran Khan has been shot dead in Pakistan a week after the country went to the polls .

Zahra Shahid Hussain, 60, the senior vice-president of Imran’s Movement for Justice (PTI) party, was shot outside her house in an upmarket area of Karachi.

She is thought to have died of injuries on the way to hospital.

The murder came on the eve of a highly contested partial re-run of a vote in Karachi following last Saturday’s general election. Violence marred the run-up to the election in which Imran’s PTI party was defeated by Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League.

The re-run was ordered after Imran’s party accused Karachi’s dominant party, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), of vote-rigging and intimidation.

Police sources said Hussain’s murder was the result of an attempted robbery in which two men tried to snatch her purse before shooting her in front of her